.gif)
Curtain (novel)
Encyclopedia
Curtain: Poirot's Last Case is a work of detective fiction
by Agatha Christie
and first published in the UK by the Collins Crime Club
in September 1975 and in the US by Dodd, Mead and Company
later in the same year.
The novel features Hercule Poirot
and Arthur Hastings
in their final appearances in Christie's works (see below). Christie wrote the novel in the early 1940s, during World War II. Partly fearing for her own survival, and partly wanting to have a fitting end to Poirot's series of novels, Christie had the novel locked away in a bank vault for over thirty years. The final Poirot novel that Christie wrote, Elephants Can Remember
, was published in 1972, followed by Christie's last novel, Postern of Fate
. Knowing that she could no longer write any novels, the elderly Christie authorised Curtains removal from the vault and subsequent publication. It was the last of her books to be published during her lifetime.
Not only does the novel return the characters to the setting of her first, The Mysterious Affair at Styles
, but it reunites Poirot and Hastings, who had not appeared together since Dumb Witness
in 1937.
, is reunited with his old companion Captain Hastings, who has since become a widower. When they receive a letter from Styles Court, the place where they solved their first murder together, it seems like fate and they readily accept. However, after the great detective brands one of the seemingly harmless guests, whom he will only identify as 'X', a ruthless serial killer
, people begin having doubts about the capability of his once renowned 'little grey cells'. But Poirot is aware that he alone must work quickly before the murderer strikes again, even if it means putting his life on the line...
), but in the case of Freda Clay, who gave her aunt an overdose of morphine
, there was considered to be too little evidence to prosecute. Hastings agrees that it is highly unlikely to be coincidence if X was connected with all five deaths, but Poirot, now using a wheelchair due to arthritis
and attended by his new valet Curtiss, will not give him X's name. He merely makes it clear that X is in the house, which has been turned into a private hotel by the new owners: Colonel and Mrs Luttrell.
Hastings makes certain discoveries in the next few days. Elizabeth Cole, another guest at the hotel, reveals to him that she is in fact the sister of Margaret Litchfield, who had confessed to the murder of their father in one of the five cases. Margaret had died in Broadmoor Asylum
and Elizabeth feels stigmatised by the case. Later that day Hastings and several other people overhear an argument between Colonel Luttrell and his wife. Shortly afterwards, he wounds her with a rook rifle, apparently mistaking her for a rabbit. Hastings reflects that this is precisely the sort of accident with which X is associated, but Mrs Luttrell rapidly recovers.
Hastings is concerned by the attentions paid to his daughter Judith by Major Allerton, whom he discovers is married but estranged from his Catholic wife. While he and Elizabeth are out with Stephen Norton, another guest and a birdwatcher
, Norton sees something through his binoculars that seems to upset him. Hastings suspects that it is something to do with Allerton and, when his clumsy attempts to persuade Judith to give Allerton up merely antagonise her, he plans Allerton's murder. He falls asleep while waiting to poison Allerton, and feels differently about things when he awakes the next day.
Barbara Franklin, the wife of Judith's employer Dr Franklin and the childhood friend of Sir William Boyd Carrington, dies the following evening. She has been poisoned with physostigmine sulphate
, an extract from the Calabar bean
that her husband has been researching. After Poirot's testimony at the inquest – that Mrs Franklin had been upset and that she had emerged from Dr Franklin's laboratory with a small bottle – a verdict of suicide is brought in, but Hastings suspects that the death was murder and Poirot confirms this.
Norton, still evidently upset about what he has seen through the binoculars, asks Hastings for his advice, which is to confide in Poirot. Poirot arranges a meeting between them and says that Norton must not speak to anyone further of what he has seen. That night, Hastings is awakened by a noise and sees Norton – with his dressing-gown, untidy grey hair and characteristic limp – go into his bedroom. The next morning, however, Norton is found dead in his locked room with a bullet-hole perfectly in the centre of his forehead, the key in his dressing-gown pocket and a pistol (remembered by a housemaid as belonging to him) nearby. Apparently, X has struck again.
Poirot takes Hastings over the evidence, pointing out that his belief that he saw Norton that night relies on loose evidence: the dressing-gown, the hair, the limp. Nevertheless, it seems that there is no one in the house who could have impersonated Norton, who was a short man. Hastings despairs that the mystery will ever be solved when Poirot himself dies that night, apparently of natural causes. He nevertheless leaves Hastings three conscious clues: a copy of Othello
, a copy of John Ferguson (a 1915 play by St. John Greer Ervine
that is now – unluckily for readers of Curtain – largely forgotten) and a note telling Hastings to speak to his permanent valet, Georges.
In the weeks that follow the death of Poirot, Hastings is staggered to discover that Judith has all along been in love with Dr Franklin, and is now marrying him and going with him to do research in Africa. Was Judith the murderer? When Hastings speaks to Georges, he discovers that Poirot wore a wig, and also that Poirot's reasons for employing Curtiss were vague. Perhaps the murderer was Curtiss all along?
The solution, and one of the greatest of Christie's twist endings, is contained in a written confession that is sent to Hastings from Poirot's lawyers, four months after Poirot's death. In it, Poirot reveals that he wore a false moustache as well as a wig and explains that X was Norton, a man who had perfected the technique of which Iago
in Othello (like a character in Ervine's play) is master: applying just such psychological pressure as is needed to provoke someone to commit murder, where normally they would let the other live and dismiss their desires as simply the heat of the moment, without anyone ever truly realising what he is doing. Again and again Norton had demonstrated this ability, first by apparently clumsy remarks that goaded Colonel Luttrell to take a homicidal shot at his wife, and then by his careful manipulation of Hastings to resolve upon the murder of Major Allerton. It was Norton's contrivances that created the impression that Judith loved Allerton when in fact she has been in love with Franklin all along. Hastings's potential murder had, however, been averted by Poirot's presence of mind in forcing drugged hot chocolate upon him on the night that he had intended it to take place, the same action resolving Poirot to take action; he knew that Hastings was not a murderer, but if he had not intervened Hastings would have hanged for a crime while the 'true' murderer would have escaped seemingly innocent.
Deprived of his prey twice, Norton turned to Mrs Franklin, who was soon persuaded to attempt the murder of her husband, after which she could be reunited with the wealthy and attractive Boyd Carrington. By an ironic twist of Fate, however, Hastings himself had intervened in this murder; by turning a revolving bookcase table while seeking out a book in order to solve a crossword clue (coincidentally Othello again) he had swapped the cups of coffee so that the one with poison in it was actually drunk by Mrs Franklin herself.
Poirot knew all this but could not prove it. He sensed that Norton, who had been deliberately vague about whom he had seen through the binoculars when attempting to imply that he had seen Allerton and Judith, was now intending to reveal that he had seen Franklin and Judith, almost certainly implicating them in the apparent murder of Franklin's wife. The only solution was for Poirot to murder Norton himself. At their meeting, he revealed to Norton what he suspected and said that he intended to 'execute' him. He then gave him hot chocolate. Norton, arrogantly self-assured in the face of both the accusation and the threat, insisted on swapping cups, but both contained the same sleeping pills that had previously been used by Poirot to drug Hastings; guessing that Norton would request the swap, Poirot had drugged both cups, knowing that his time taking the pills would give him a higher tolerance for a dose that would put Norton out.
With Norton unconscious, Poirot, whose incapacity had been faked (a trick for which he needed a temporary valet who did not know how healthy he was and would accept his word without question) moved the body back to Norton's room in his wheelchair. Then, he disguised himself as Norton by removing his wig, putting on Norton's dressing-gown and ruffling up his grey hair. Poirot was the only short suspect at the house. With it established that Norton was alive after he left Poirot's room, Poirot shot him – with characteristic but unnecessary symmetry – in the centre of his forehead. He locked the room with a duplicate key that Hastings knew Poirot to possess; both Hastings and the reader would have assumed that the duplicate key was to Poirot's own room, but Poirot had said that he had changed rooms before Norton's arrival, and it was to this previous room that he had the key.
Poirot's last actions were to write the confession and await his death, which he accelerated by moving amyl nitrite
phials
out of his own reach, seeking to avoid the traditional arrogance of the murderer where he might come to believe that he had the right to kill those he deemed it necessary to eliminate. His last wish is implicitly that Hastings will marry Elizabeth Cole: a final instance of the inveterate matchmaking that has characterised his entire career.
of October 9, 1975 said that the book was both "a curiosity and a triumph." He repeated the tale of the book being written some thirty years before and then stated that, "through it, Dame Agatha, whose recent work has shown a decline, is seen once more at the peak of her ingenuity." Commenting on the return of Hastings, Coady called the character the "densest of Dr Watsons; but never has the stupidity of the faithful companion-chronicler been so cunningly exploited as it is here." Coady summarised the absolute basics of the plot and the questions raised within it and then said, "In providing the answers, the great illusionist of crime fiction provides a model demonstration of reader manipulation. The seemingly artless, simplistic Christie prose is mined with deceits. Inside the old, absurd conventions of the Country House mystery she reworks the least likely person trick with a freshness rivalling the originality she displayed nearly 50 years ago in The Murder of Roger Ackroyd
. Coady concluded, "For the egotistic Poirot, hero of some 40 books…it is a dazzlingly theatrical finish. 'Goodbye, cher ami,' runs his final message to the hapless Hastings. 'They were good days.' For addicts, everywhere, they were among the best."
Two months later, Coady nominated Curtain as his Book of the Year in a column of critic's choices. He said, "No crime story of 1975 has given me more undiluted pleasure. As a critic, I welcome it, as a reminder that sheer ingenuity can still amaze."
Maurice Richardson in The Observer
of October 5, 1975 summed up: "One of her most highly contrived jobs, artificial as a mechanical birdcage, but an unputdownable swansong."
Robert Barnard
: "Written in the 'forties, designed for publication after Christie's death, but in fact issued just before it. Based on an idea toyed with in Peril at End House
(chapter 9) – a clever and interesting one, but needing greater subtlety in the handling than Christie's style or characterisation will allow (the characters here are in any case quite exceptionally pallid). In fact, for a long-cherished idea, and as an exit for Poirot, this is oddly perfunctory in execution."
as Poirot. It will be the final episode of the final series of Agatha Christie's Poirot
In the US the novel was serialised in Ladies Home Journal in two abridged instalments from July (Volume XCII, Number 7) to August 1975 (Volume XCII, Number 8) with an illustration by Mark English.
Detective fiction
Detective fiction is a sub-genre of crime fiction and mystery fiction in which an investigator , either professional or amateur, investigates a crime, often murder.-In ancient literature:...
by Agatha Christie
Agatha Christie
Dame Agatha Christie DBE was a British crime writer of novels, short stories, and plays. She also wrote romances under the name Mary Westmacott, but she is best remembered for her 66 detective novels and 14 short story collections , and her successful West End plays.According to...
and first published in the UK by the Collins Crime Club
Collins Crime Club
The Collins Crime Club was an imprint of UK book publishers William Collins & Co Ltd and ran from May 6, 1930 to April 1994. Customers registered their name and address with the club and were sent a newsletter every three months which advised them of the latest books which had been or were to be...
in September 1975 and in the US by Dodd, Mead and Company
Dodd, Mead and Company
Dodd, Mead and Company was one of the pioneer publishing houses of the United States, based in New York City. Under several names, the firm operated from 1839 until 1990. Its history properly began in 1870, with the retirement of its founder, Moses Woodruff Dodd. Control passed to his son Frank...
later in the same year.
The novel features Hercule Poirot
Hercule Poirot
Hercule Poirot is a fictional Belgian detective created by Agatha Christie. Along with Miss Marple, Poirot is one of Christie's most famous and long-lived characters, appearing in 33 novels and 51 short stories published between 1920 and 1975 and set in the same era.Poirot has been portrayed on...
and Arthur Hastings
Arthur Hastings
Captain Arthur Hastings, OBE, is a fictional character, the amateur sleuthing partner and best friend of Agatha Christie's Belgian detective, Hercule Poirot...
in their final appearances in Christie's works (see below). Christie wrote the novel in the early 1940s, during World War II. Partly fearing for her own survival, and partly wanting to have a fitting end to Poirot's series of novels, Christie had the novel locked away in a bank vault for over thirty years. The final Poirot novel that Christie wrote, Elephants Can Remember
Elephants Can Remember
Elephants Can Remember is a work of detective fiction by Agatha Christie, first published in the UK by the Collins Crime Club in November 1972 and in the US by Dodd, Mead and Company later in the same year. The UK edition retailed for £1.60 and the US edition at $6.95.It features her Belgian...
, was published in 1972, followed by Christie's last novel, Postern of Fate
Postern of Fate
Postern of Fate is a work of detective fiction by Agatha Christie that was first published in the UK by the Collins Crime Club in October 1973 and in the US by Dodd, Mead and Company later in the same year. The UK edition retailed at £2.00 and the US edition at $6.95.The book features her...
. Knowing that she could no longer write any novels, the elderly Christie authorised Curtains removal from the vault and subsequent publication. It was the last of her books to be published during her lifetime.
Not only does the novel return the characters to the setting of her first, The Mysterious Affair at Styles
The Mysterious Affair at Styles
The Mysterious Affair at Styles is a detective novel by Agatha Christie. It was written in 1916 and was first published by John Lane in the United States in October 1920 and in the United Kingdom by The Bodley Head on January 21, 1921. The U.S...
, but it reunites Poirot and Hastings, who had not appeared together since Dumb Witness
Dumb Witness
Dumb Witness is a detective fiction novel by British writer Agatha Christie, first published in the UK by the Collins Crime Club on July 5 1937 and in the US by Dodd, Mead and Company later in the same year under the title of Poirot Loses a Client...
in 1937.
Synopsis
After a year apart Hercule Poirot, now crippled with arthritisArthritis
Arthritis is a form of joint disorder that involves inflammation of one or more joints....
, is reunited with his old companion Captain Hastings, who has since become a widower. When they receive a letter from Styles Court, the place where they solved their first murder together, it seems like fate and they readily accept. However, after the great detective brands one of the seemingly harmless guests, whom he will only identify as 'X', a ruthless serial killer
Serial killer
A serial killer, as typically defined, is an individual who has murdered three or more people over a period of more than a month, with down time between the murders, and whose motivation for killing is usually based on psychological gratification...
, people begin having doubts about the capability of his once renowned 'little grey cells'. But Poirot is aware that he alone must work quickly before the murderer strikes again, even if it means putting his life on the line...
Plot summary
The murderer, identified by Poirot simply by the letter X, has been completely unsuspected of involvement in five previous murders, in all of which there was a clear suspect. Four of these suspects have subsequently died (one of them hangedCapital punishment
Capital punishment, the death penalty, or execution is the sentence of death upon a person by the state as a punishment for an offence. Crimes that can result in a death penalty are known as capital crimes or capital offences. The term capital originates from the Latin capitalis, literally...
), but in the case of Freda Clay, who gave her aunt an overdose of morphine
Morphine
Morphine is a potent opiate analgesic medication and is considered to be the prototypical opioid. It was first isolated in 1804 by Friedrich Sertürner, first distributed by same in 1817, and first commercially sold by Merck in 1827, which at the time was a single small chemists' shop. It was more...
, there was considered to be too little evidence to prosecute. Hastings agrees that it is highly unlikely to be coincidence if X was connected with all five deaths, but Poirot, now using a wheelchair due to arthritis
Arthritis
Arthritis is a form of joint disorder that involves inflammation of one or more joints....
and attended by his new valet Curtiss, will not give him X's name. He merely makes it clear that X is in the house, which has been turned into a private hotel by the new owners: Colonel and Mrs Luttrell.
Hastings makes certain discoveries in the next few days. Elizabeth Cole, another guest at the hotel, reveals to him that she is in fact the sister of Margaret Litchfield, who had confessed to the murder of their father in one of the five cases. Margaret had died in Broadmoor Asylum
Broadmoor Hospital
Broadmoor Hospital is a high-security psychiatric hospital at Crowthorne in the Borough of Bracknell Forest in Berkshire, England. It is the best known of the three high-security psychiatric hospitals in England, the other two being Ashworth and Rampton...
and Elizabeth feels stigmatised by the case. Later that day Hastings and several other people overhear an argument between Colonel Luttrell and his wife. Shortly afterwards, he wounds her with a rook rifle, apparently mistaking her for a rabbit. Hastings reflects that this is precisely the sort of accident with which X is associated, but Mrs Luttrell rapidly recovers.
Hastings is concerned by the attentions paid to his daughter Judith by Major Allerton, whom he discovers is married but estranged from his Catholic wife. While he and Elizabeth are out with Stephen Norton, another guest and a birdwatcher
Birdwatching
Birdwatching or birding is the observation of birds as a recreational activity. It can be done with the naked eye, through a visual enhancement device like binoculars and telescopes, or by listening for bird sounds. Birding often involves a significant auditory component, as many bird species are...
, Norton sees something through his binoculars that seems to upset him. Hastings suspects that it is something to do with Allerton and, when his clumsy attempts to persuade Judith to give Allerton up merely antagonise her, he plans Allerton's murder. He falls asleep while waiting to poison Allerton, and feels differently about things when he awakes the next day.
Barbara Franklin, the wife of Judith's employer Dr Franklin and the childhood friend of Sir William Boyd Carrington, dies the following evening. She has been poisoned with physostigmine sulphate
Physostigmine
Physostigmine is a parasympathomimetic alkaloid, specifically, a reversible cholinesterase inhibitor. It occurs naturally in the Calabar bean....
, an extract from the Calabar bean
Calabar bean
The Calabar bean is the seed of a leguminous plant, Physostigma venenosum, a native of tropical Africa, poisonous to humans. It derives the first part of its scientific name from a curious beak-like appendage at the end of the stigma, in the centre of the flower; this appendage, though solid, was...
that her husband has been researching. After Poirot's testimony at the inquest – that Mrs Franklin had been upset and that she had emerged from Dr Franklin's laboratory with a small bottle – a verdict of suicide is brought in, but Hastings suspects that the death was murder and Poirot confirms this.
Norton, still evidently upset about what he has seen through the binoculars, asks Hastings for his advice, which is to confide in Poirot. Poirot arranges a meeting between them and says that Norton must not speak to anyone further of what he has seen. That night, Hastings is awakened by a noise and sees Norton – with his dressing-gown, untidy grey hair and characteristic limp – go into his bedroom. The next morning, however, Norton is found dead in his locked room with a bullet-hole perfectly in the centre of his forehead, the key in his dressing-gown pocket and a pistol (remembered by a housemaid as belonging to him) nearby. Apparently, X has struck again.
Poirot takes Hastings over the evidence, pointing out that his belief that he saw Norton that night relies on loose evidence: the dressing-gown, the hair, the limp. Nevertheless, it seems that there is no one in the house who could have impersonated Norton, who was a short man. Hastings despairs that the mystery will ever be solved when Poirot himself dies that night, apparently of natural causes. He nevertheless leaves Hastings three conscious clues: a copy of Othello
Othello
The Tragedy of Othello, the Moor of Venice is a tragedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written in approximately 1603, and based on the Italian short story "Un Capitano Moro" by Cinthio, a disciple of Boccaccio, first published in 1565...
, a copy of John Ferguson (a 1915 play by St. John Greer Ervine
St. John Greer Ervine
St. John Greer Ervine was an Irish author, writer, critic and dramatist. He wrote the plays Anthony and Anna in 1926 and The First Mrs. Fraser in 1929. He was born in Belfast, Ireland but moved to London while in his teens. His 1956 biography George Bernard Shaw was awarded the James Tait Black...
that is now – unluckily for readers of Curtain – largely forgotten) and a note telling Hastings to speak to his permanent valet, Georges.
In the weeks that follow the death of Poirot, Hastings is staggered to discover that Judith has all along been in love with Dr Franklin, and is now marrying him and going with him to do research in Africa. Was Judith the murderer? When Hastings speaks to Georges, he discovers that Poirot wore a wig, and also that Poirot's reasons for employing Curtiss were vague. Perhaps the murderer was Curtiss all along?
The solution, and one of the greatest of Christie's twist endings, is contained in a written confession that is sent to Hastings from Poirot's lawyers, four months after Poirot's death. In it, Poirot reveals that he wore a false moustache as well as a wig and explains that X was Norton, a man who had perfected the technique of which Iago
Iago
Iago is a fictional character in Shakespeare's Othello . The character's source is traced to Giovanni Battista Giraldi Cinthio's tale "Un Capitano Moro" in Gli Hecatommithi . There, the character is simply "the ensign". Iago is a soldier and Othello's ancient . He is the husband of Emilia,...
in Othello (like a character in Ervine's play) is master: applying just such psychological pressure as is needed to provoke someone to commit murder, where normally they would let the other live and dismiss their desires as simply the heat of the moment, without anyone ever truly realising what he is doing. Again and again Norton had demonstrated this ability, first by apparently clumsy remarks that goaded Colonel Luttrell to take a homicidal shot at his wife, and then by his careful manipulation of Hastings to resolve upon the murder of Major Allerton. It was Norton's contrivances that created the impression that Judith loved Allerton when in fact she has been in love with Franklin all along. Hastings's potential murder had, however, been averted by Poirot's presence of mind in forcing drugged hot chocolate upon him on the night that he had intended it to take place, the same action resolving Poirot to take action; he knew that Hastings was not a murderer, but if he had not intervened Hastings would have hanged for a crime while the 'true' murderer would have escaped seemingly innocent.
Deprived of his prey twice, Norton turned to Mrs Franklin, who was soon persuaded to attempt the murder of her husband, after which she could be reunited with the wealthy and attractive Boyd Carrington. By an ironic twist of Fate, however, Hastings himself had intervened in this murder; by turning a revolving bookcase table while seeking out a book in order to solve a crossword clue (coincidentally Othello again) he had swapped the cups of coffee so that the one with poison in it was actually drunk by Mrs Franklin herself.
Poirot knew all this but could not prove it. He sensed that Norton, who had been deliberately vague about whom he had seen through the binoculars when attempting to imply that he had seen Allerton and Judith, was now intending to reveal that he had seen Franklin and Judith, almost certainly implicating them in the apparent murder of Franklin's wife. The only solution was for Poirot to murder Norton himself. At their meeting, he revealed to Norton what he suspected and said that he intended to 'execute' him. He then gave him hot chocolate. Norton, arrogantly self-assured in the face of both the accusation and the threat, insisted on swapping cups, but both contained the same sleeping pills that had previously been used by Poirot to drug Hastings; guessing that Norton would request the swap, Poirot had drugged both cups, knowing that his time taking the pills would give him a higher tolerance for a dose that would put Norton out.
With Norton unconscious, Poirot, whose incapacity had been faked (a trick for which he needed a temporary valet who did not know how healthy he was and would accept his word without question) moved the body back to Norton's room in his wheelchair. Then, he disguised himself as Norton by removing his wig, putting on Norton's dressing-gown and ruffling up his grey hair. Poirot was the only short suspect at the house. With it established that Norton was alive after he left Poirot's room, Poirot shot him – with characteristic but unnecessary symmetry – in the centre of his forehead. He locked the room with a duplicate key that Hastings knew Poirot to possess; both Hastings and the reader would have assumed that the duplicate key was to Poirot's own room, but Poirot had said that he had changed rooms before Norton's arrival, and it was to this previous room that he had the key.
Poirot's last actions were to write the confession and await his death, which he accelerated by moving amyl nitrite
Amyl nitrite
Amyl nitrite is the chemical compound with the formula C5H11ONO. A variety of isomers are known, but they all feature an amyl group attached to the nitrito functional group. The alkyl group is unreactive and the chemical and biological properties are mainly due to the nitrite group...
phials
Vial
A vial is a relatively small glass vessel or bottle, especially used to store medication as liquids, powders or in other forms like capsules. They can also be sample vessels; e.g., for use in autosampler devices in analytical chromatography.The glass can be colourless or coloured, clear or amber...
out of his own reach, seeking to avoid the traditional arrogance of the murderer where he might come to believe that he had the right to kill those he deemed it necessary to eliminate. His last wish is implicitly that Hastings will marry Elizabeth Cole: a final instance of the inveterate matchmaking that has characterised his entire career.
Characters
- Hercule Poirot, the Belgian detective
- Captain Arthur Hastings, Poirot's friend and Judith's father
- Curtiss, Poirot's valet
- Dr John Franklin, a research chemist
- Barbara Franklin, his invalided wife
- Judith Hastings, Franklin's laboratory assistant and Captain Hastings' daughter
- Nurse Craven, nurse to Barbara Franklin
- Sir William Boyd Carrington, former governor of a province of India
- Major Allerton, a womaniser
- Stephen Norton, a bird watcher
- Colonel Toby Luttrell, owner of Styles Court
- Mrs Daisy Luttrell, his wife
- Elizabeth Cole
- Georges, Poirot's former valet
Literary significance and reception
In a review titled The last labour of Hercules, Matthew Coady in The GuardianThe Guardian
The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
of October 9, 1975 said that the book was both "a curiosity and a triumph." He repeated the tale of the book being written some thirty years before and then stated that, "through it, Dame Agatha, whose recent work has shown a decline, is seen once more at the peak of her ingenuity." Commenting on the return of Hastings, Coady called the character the "densest of Dr Watsons; but never has the stupidity of the faithful companion-chronicler been so cunningly exploited as it is here." Coady summarised the absolute basics of the plot and the questions raised within it and then said, "In providing the answers, the great illusionist of crime fiction provides a model demonstration of reader manipulation. The seemingly artless, simplistic Christie prose is mined with deceits. Inside the old, absurd conventions of the Country House mystery she reworks the least likely person trick with a freshness rivalling the originality she displayed nearly 50 years ago in The Murder of Roger Ackroyd
The Murder of Roger Ackroyd
The Murder of Roger Ackroyd is a work of detective fiction by Agatha Christie, first published in the UK by William Collins & Sons in June 1926 and in the United States by Dodd, Mead and Company on the 19th of the same month. It features Hercule Poirot as the lead detective...
. Coady concluded, "For the egotistic Poirot, hero of some 40 books…it is a dazzlingly theatrical finish. 'Goodbye, cher ami,' runs his final message to the hapless Hastings. 'They were good days.' For addicts, everywhere, they were among the best."
Two months later, Coady nominated Curtain as his Book of the Year in a column of critic's choices. He said, "No crime story of 1975 has given me more undiluted pleasure. As a critic, I welcome it, as a reminder that sheer ingenuity can still amaze."
Maurice Richardson in The Observer
The Observer
The Observer is a British newspaper, published on Sundays. In the same place on the political spectrum as its daily sister paper The Guardian, which acquired it in 1993, it takes a liberal or social democratic line on most issues. It is the world's oldest Sunday newspaper.-Origins:The first issue,...
of October 5, 1975 summed up: "One of her most highly contrived jobs, artificial as a mechanical birdcage, but an unputdownable swansong."
Robert Barnard
Robert Barnard
Robert Barnard is an English crime writer, critic and lecturer.- Life and work :Born in Essex, Barnard was educated at the Colchester Royal Grammar School and at Balliol College in Oxford....
: "Written in the 'forties, designed for publication after Christie's death, but in fact issued just before it. Based on an idea toyed with in Peril at End House
Peril at End House
Peril at End House is a work of detective fiction by Agatha Christie first published in the US by the Dodd, Mead and Company in February 1932 and in the UK by the Collins Crime Club in March of the same year...
(chapter 9) – a clever and interesting one, but needing greater subtlety in the handling than Christie's style or characterisation will allow (the characters here are in any case quite exceptionally pallid). In fact, for a long-cherished idea, and as an exit for Poirot, this is oddly perfunctory in execution."
Adaptation
The novel will be adapted in 2012 starring David SuchetDavid Suchet
David Suchet, CBE, is an English actor, known for his work on British television. He is recognised for his RTS- and BPG award-winning performance as Augustus Melmotte in the 2001 British TV mini-drama The Way We Live Now, alongside Matthew Macfadyen and Paloma Baeza, and a 1991 British Academy...
as Poirot. It will be the final episode of the final series of Agatha Christie's Poirot
Agatha Christie's Poirot
Agatha Christie's Poirot is a British television drama that has aired on ITV since 1989. It stars David Suchet as Agatha Christie's fictional detective Hercule Poirot. It was originally made by LWT and is now made by ITV Studios...
Publication history
- 1975, Collins Crime Club (London), September 1975, Hardcover, 224 pp ISBN 0-00-231619-6
- 1975, Dodd Mead and Company (New York), Hardcover, 238 pp, ISBN 0-39-607191-0
- 1976, Pocket BooksPocket BooksPocket Books is a division of Simon & Schuster that primarily publishes paperback books.- History :Pocket produced the first mass-market, pocket-sized paperback books in America in early 1939 and revolutionized the publishing industry...
(New York), Paperback, 280 pp - 1976, Ulverscroft Large-print Edition, Hardcover, 325 pp, ISBN 0-85-456498-5
- 1977, Fontana Books (Imprint of HarperCollinsHarperCollinsHarperCollins is a publishing company owned by News Corporation. It is the combination of the publishers William Collins, Sons and Co Ltd, a British company, and Harper & Row, an American company, itself the result of an earlier merger of Harper & Brothers and Row, Peterson & Company. The worldwide...
), Paperback, 188 pp - 1992, G.K. Hall & Co. large-print edition, Hardcover, ISBN 0-81-614539-3
In the US the novel was serialised in Ladies Home Journal in two abridged instalments from July (Volume XCII, Number 7) to August 1975 (Volume XCII, Number 8) with an illustration by Mark English.
International titles
- Português: Cai o pano (The Curtain Falls)
- Dutch: Het doek valt (The Curtain Falls)
- Hungarian: Függöny (Poirot utolsó esete) (Curtain [Poirot's Last Case])
- Italian: Sipario (L'ultima avventura di Poirot) (Curtain [Poirot's Last Adventure])
- French : Poirot quitte la scène (Poirot leaves the stage/Poirot gives up the stage)
- Spanish: "Telón. El último caso de Poirot."
- Finnish: "Esirippu" (Curtain)
- Indonesia: "Tirai" (Curtain)
- Slovak: Opona (Poirotov posledný prípad) (Curtain [Poirot's Last Case])
External links
- Curtain at the official Agatha Christie website